


Warmth

by noxic



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Post-Canon, barry & taako are bros, bed sharing, idk why i tagged magnus twice he's there for like one (1) scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 10:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17641304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxic/pseuds/noxic
Summary: "It was a well-known fact among the residents of the Starblaster that Lup, Barry, and Taako slept in the same bed more often than not. It was one of those things that they just did without really talking about it."A peek in at some canon and post-canon events through the lens of a very specific headcanon. Aka, the author's feelings about the relationship between Barry, Lup, and Taako. (Set during and after the Stolen Century & Day of Story and Song)





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> this might feel disjointed because i wrote it over a long period of time, but these are some of the scenes that i feel best express my feelings about lup and her place in her boys' lives, as well as her struggles inside of the umbra staff

It was a well-known fact among the residents of the Starblaster that Lup, Barry, and Taako slept in the same bed more often than not. It was one of those things that they just did without really talking about it. It was like how Merle would sometimes spend days “communing with nature” if they landed on a particularly well-forested planet, or how he would always bring back a book filled with pressed flowers for Lucretia to preserve and catalogue. It was like how Davenport would wake each morning even before Lup and Taako got up to make breakfast, head to the main deck of the Starblaster, and watch the sun rise in the early morning sky with a solemnity that the others didn’t dare to question. It was like how Magnus, despite his strength and sometimes brutish willfulness, knocked gently on a door before he opened it.

These were all things that they just _did_ without ever needing to explain themselves. Lucretia might’ve called them coping mechanisms. To Lup, it was just living.

She and Taako were a package deal. That had been one of her disclaimers to Barry on the day they’d finally decided to make it official between them. Even though she loved Barry with her whole heart, the fact remained that Taako _was_ her whole heart. He truly was her other half (though obviously, _she_ was the _better_ half). And if Barry wanted to be a part of her life, he had to accept that.

When she told him that, Barry quirked an eyebrow, took her hand in his and said, “Well, yeah. I mean, natch, right?”

Hot _damn_ she loved him.

They didn’t share a bed _every_ night, of course. Sometimes, she and Barry needed their time alone and Taako was more than happy to excuse himself to let them be. But most nights, without discussion or fanfare, the three of them ended up in Lup’s quarters in one big pile of flesh and fabric, sharing warmth and dreaming together as the world around them slowly approached its inevitable end.

 

Magnus asked Barry about it once.

Barry was alone in the Starblaster’s lab while Lup and Taako cooked dinner. Magnus wandered in nonchalantly, sliding onto a stool across the table from where Barry was examining his most recent notes on the Light of Creation. After a quick greeting, they lapsed into a silence that Barry would describe as…not quite friendly, but maybe neutral. He and Magnus were friends, obviously, but they didn’t have much in common. It wasn’t often that Magnus bothered to come into the lab at all, and when he did it was usually to find Lup, who was easily Magnus’ favorite out of their tiny crew.

But Lup wasn’t there, and Barry could feel Magnus’ eyes on him as he tried to read back his chicken scratch from the night before. Magnus was not exactly a subtle man, even when he tried to be. Barry was not convinced that he was trying at _all_ just then.

“Uh,” he said after a few moments of stale air between them. Mangus blinked, but he didn’t look away the way someone might when they realize they’ve just been caught staring. “Did you need something?”

Magnus raised both eyebrows, pursing his lips as if in contemplation. Then he squinted at Barry, giving him a once-over that made Barry feel self-conscious despite himself. Barry crossed his arms across his chest, and Magnus finally spoke.

“Are you dating Lup and Taako?”

…

“ _What?_ ” Barry’s head whipped back and forth as he scanned the lab. “Is this a joke? Did the twins send you to goof on me?” He craned his neck as if that would help him see better around the doorframe (it didn’t’). “Are they hiding somewhere? Taako? _Lup_?”

But Magnus only laughed. “Dude, calm down. It’s nothing like that. I just saw you guys go into Lup’s bedroom together the other night and when nobody came out after a while…” He waved his hand in a vague gesture that didn’t really look like anything. “…I just kind of put the pieces together, y’know?”

Barry grimaced, and Magnus flinched. But before Barry could offer an explanation, the other man let loose with a string of apologies that made Barry honestly a little bit guilty.

“Oh my gosh, sorry if it was supposed to be a secret! I didn’t tell anybody if you were worried about that. Sorry if I made you worry! But, you know, I don’t think anybody on the ship would really mind, especially knowing the way those two have always been. I’m sorry if I made you think—”

Barry cast Mage Hand and used the spectral appendage to cover Magnus’ mouth. Predictably, the other man stuck his tongue out to lick it on instinct, and Barry thanked the gods above that he’d had the foresight not to use his actual flesh hand.

“Listen, Magnus,” he said after a beat of silence, dismissing the mage hand now that he’d captured the fighter’s attention. “It’s not quite like that. I’m not dating Taako. Just, uh. Just Lup.”

Magnus’ face shuffled through a series of expressions at that. First came delight, then confusion, then a touching amount of labored contemplation. Barry gave him a moment to work it out.

“So you’re in a relationship with my BFF, but you sleep in the same bed with her _and_ her twin brother.” Barry nodded. “But you’re not in a relationship with _him_ , yeah?” Another nod.

“It’s just how we do things,” Barry said. “And frankly I’m not gonna say no to the extra warmth. It gets cold at night, y’know?” Magnus nodded sagely.

“Yeah, that makes sense. Good to know, I guess. Dinner’ll be ready in five, b-t-dubs.” And with that, Magnus got up from his stool, walked out of the lab, and left Barry alone with his illegible notes and the sneaking suspicion that “good to know” probably meant something more to Magnus than just “ _good to know_.” He wondered if he’d hear about it from Taako anytime soon. But he didn’t need the particulars.

Taako was his brother, after all.

 

 

When Lup went missing, Barry and Taako were the ones most strongly affected. Barry had lost the love of his life seemingly into thin air, and that fucking sucked. But Taako? Taako had lost his entire _world_ , and it showed.

Beautiful, vibrant, shining Taako was a rare sight in those days. He didn’t rest nearly enough and his magic suffered for it along with his health. Barry had never seen him so devoid of color. The others noticed too, of course, but it was most obvious to Barry because they still slept in the same bed.

Even without Lup there, her two boys would still make their way into her bunk and lay side by side in bed, curled around the empty space where Lup used to sleep with one hand on each of their bodies like she needed a reminder that they were both there.

Now, that touch was just…gone. Lup was _gone_.

The bed was cold without her.

 

 

It took Lup a long time to figure out how to keep her head above water while trapped inside the Umbra staff. Consciousness took effort, and sometimes it was more than she could manage. It was hard, and being aware was just the first step. First, she had to remember that she was a person. Then she had to remember what a person was. From there, each memory of the outside world and her place within it came painfully slowly as she tried to piece together what had happened to her. And when she finally figured it out—that her own creation had combined with her hubris and poor decision-making to land her all alone for what may as well have been eternity… Well. Crying took effort, and screaming took more. It would have been easier to just let it all fall away and forget. It would have been simpler.

 

 

The inside of the umbra staff was cold.

In life, Lup had a naturally warm body temperature, but somehow that didn’t carry over to being a lich trapped in a pocket dimension inside of an umbrella that drew on arcane power to fuel a few cheap spells.

In the grand scheme of things, she supposed the cold wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t like she would die, and if she just let go of her focus, she could barely feel the cold at all. There wasn’t much she could control about the situation, but that was one thing she had already figured out.

But the problem wasn’t the cold. It was the viscerally upsetting _lack of warmth_.

She tried to lay down on the plush illusory carpet within the small chamber that made up her prison within the staff. But no matter how tightly she pulled her robe around her body or tried to hide inside the curtains draped around her at every angle, there was no one else there and that felt _wrong_.

  
  


When Lup was finally released from the umbra staff, it was like a bomb going off. In an instant, the umbrella’s two halves let loose a massive surge of arcane energy, and with that energy came light and warmth. Lup _relished_ it as it enveloped and then penetrated through her incorporeal form. The warmth filled her up all the way to her fingertips and down to her toes and quickly became heat, which then became _fire_ burning inside her bones for the first time in a long, _long_ time.

As the curtained walls of her former prison were torn away and burned up by her energy, she was deposited back in the world she’d left behind--the world where she’d left her brother and her lover sleeping in a cold and empty bed.

The reunion was nice, and their victory over the Hunger was even better. But what really shook Lup down and made her cry more than any of it was the aftermath. She had been absent from this world for so long, and most of what she remembered of it involved fire and blood and pain. But in the wake of the earth-shattering battle with the Hunger, she got to watch it rebuild itself with the Starblaster crew leading the charge. And even when all the dust had settled--after all the reconstruction and healing had set the world back to rights--she got to watch her family grow and live the lives that had been stolen from them during those hundred years of magical bullshit, and every year after that thanks to Lucretia’s well-intentioned but horrific plan to save this world the way they couldn’t save so many others.

 

 

She started this new era in their lives in lich form, of course, until Barry could grow her a new body. And those months of waiting were fine, sure, because she could still talk to her brother and her friends, could still appreciate the world and everything in it just fine. Everything was decidedly good, but when she finally made it back into a physical body, things got so much better.

The first night back in her skin, she didn’t sleep. Instead, she lay in bed, nestled in between her two favorite boys as they snored and breathed and murmured unintelligible nonsense. She lay there with one hand on each of their bodies, feeling the gentle warmth that radiated from their skin and the way they moved with each slow breath. She breathed with them and stared at ceiling in Taako’s bedroom, enjoying the way blue moonlight seeped through the gaps between the eggshell curtains. It wasn’t like the darkness within the umbra staff. Here, there was no true darkness. Here, the cold could not reach her anymore.

She stayed awake until the deep blue began to fade, replaced by the pale light of a new day. And when she finally felt Barry begin to wake, groaning as he navigated his way back into consciousness, she smiled. She leaned over to kiss his forehead, then planted one onto the crown of Taako’s head as well. Barry kissed her back before getting up from bed and making his way to the bathroom. Taako didn’t stir even a little bit.

“I love you, Koko,” Lup whispered into his hair. She gave his arm a squeeze and pulled the covers back up over his body from where they had slipped down in the night, and then she slid out of bed and down to the kitchen to start on breakfast.

When Taako woke to the smell of warm bread and coffee shortly thereafter, he could still feel his sister’s body heat lingering in the bedsheets, and her voice carried like a windchime as she spoke animatedly with Barry over breakfast.

With a small smile on his face, he went to join them.

**Author's Note:**

> if you even fucking think about coming at me with lup/taako commentary i will stomp you to death with my hooves.


End file.
